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| Vindie-Lou, intrepid day-old explorer. |
Vindie hasn't been bothered by recent weather conditions, except at 2 yesterday morning, when she decided that it was too cold and too dark and too early to come out for milk, which upset Helen (who got vocal enough about it to wake me up). In Vindie's defence, it was so cold that there was ice on the ground outside, and she did look really snug. However, Helen was worried, so Vindie was roused out of bed and transported to the milk bar so that the rest of us could go back to sleep.
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| Vindie-Lou, day-old figure skater. |
Albie met Vindie yesterday. Vindie wanted to know if
his udder produced milk, but couldn't find the teats. Albie found the whole situation kind of embarrassing and awkward - apparently it isn't a dad's job to educate one's kid about
that sort of stuff.
Helen has been producing milk overtime. Her teats are nearly as big as Vindie's head. Vindie does her best, but she just can't keep up with production (it's exhausting work, apparently - Vindie spends much of the time asleep). I milked a litre and a quarter from Helen on Tuesday morning, and a litre and a half yesterday morning, and a litre today because Vindie was up early. Helen still has plenty to spare (not that she was overly appreciative of my efforts to relieve the udder pressure).
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Two-day-old Vindie-Lou and new BFF Trusty Sidekick,
just chilling. |
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| Vindie-Lou, two-day-old mummy's girl. |
Tuesday and Wednesday's milk has been made into a miniature batch of feta, following the
same method I used early last season, but using rather elderly acidophilus yogurt as the starter culture (that was all we had), and the exciting new floating dairy thermometer that Mr Farmer brought home. The exciting new floating dairy thermometer is exciting because it replaces an old thermometer that recently decided that everything would be 15°C. The major downside is that the exciting new floating dairy thermometer floats with the temperature side down, and the temperatures (when yo can see them) are in Fahrenheit - somewhat confusing for someone who has converted her cheese recipes to Celsius - but it makes up for that by having labels at various temperatures for "freeze" "churn" "cheese" "pasteurise" and "water boils". The curds are currently draining in home-made cheese molds, which replace cheesecloth because they claim to be less messy. This claim pleases Mr Farmer immensely.
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| Proud mum Helen and two-day-old Vindie-Lou. |
Helen has been mowing the lawn next door, which is steep and, with the current sodden ground, inaccessible even by our neighbour's seasoned ride-on mower (a petrol-powered one, not a
grass-powered one like we had). Vindie usually wakes up in time to join Helen for lunch, then has a long afternoon nap in the bushes, after which it is about time to come home with her mum for the evening.
So I guess you got some of that New Zealand snow? Oy. I think the odd goat in that one picture with Vindie looks like an angora. Do you harvest its hair? :)By the way, in case you didn't already know it, goats are always intrepid.
ReplyDeleteYes - the New Zealand snow finally made its way North to us. Nobody was overly pleased, especially Albie, who (along with the odd goat, who sleeps in bed with an electric blanket) is the least intrepid goat we know.
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